Madden 93: 1HN Hammer Redemption

Last night, I pulled off what I had never thought I would actually do, despite the numerous opportunities that were granted me in the past: I bought the Sega Genesis game cartridge for John Madden Football 93 (or Madden 93). Several months ago, I had spotted it in a local retrogame store; believe it or not, there is a store dedicated to retro video game cartridges in my town! Feeling a bit down about my prospects of an X-Wing Miniatures Game match being shattered as my sparring partner comforted his distraught friend, I ventured to that store and, for seven measly American dollars, I acquired that once long-lost gem for myself. To be honest, though, it wasn't really "long-lost," as much as it was destroyed in a fit of anger. I shall elucidate...

During my second year of college, I purchased a Sega Genesis Model One from KB Toys in Los Angeles. At the time, the Model One Genesis was on sale for $129 or something like that, and I knew that this was a great deal. I had wanted a Genesis for some time, having been the owner of a Nintendo Entertainment System which had been long outmoded by then. Throughout my high school years, my friends Ed and Tim owned a Genesis. We used to spend evenings playing various games, especially Madden 92 (I wrote a post about that). After acquiring that magical piece of 16-bit hardware, I meandered home and plugged it into my old CRT television with the provided RF adapter. I inserted my first game cartridge, Sonic the Hedgehog, and fired up the console. Sure enough, the Genesis was as fun as it was during my high school days.

I don't remember exactly when I acquired Madden 93, but I know that by 1994 (when I acquired the Genesis), it was an older game. Nonetheless, I bought it and played it numerous times with Ed, who was one of my roommates at UCLA. One of my all-time favorite video game memories was playing alongside Ed as the 1985 Chicago Bears. We may a simple rule for ourselves to enhance the challenge of playing against the computer: we could NOT score on offensive plays. We could score after an interception, a fumble, a punt, a kickoff, or as a result of a safety; otherwise, we had to punt the ball. We experienced some hilarious scenarios. One scenario was after we would intercept the ball, run it to the opposition's 4-yard-line, and then get tackled; because we couldn't score on offense, we had to punt, so we had to angle our punt to the sidelines AND kick with as little power as possible to move the ball to the 1-yard-line! Another funny scenario was trying to rush the quarterback at the same time only to have both of our sprites dive past the fortunate quarterback. We used to shift the defensive line off to one side and rush from other other side. We also got really good at batting down passes... I don't know if we could win in a modern football game in this way, but I can say with certainty that doing so wouldn't be as delightful as it was with Madden 93 on the Sega Genesis.

Anyway, as my second year of college came to a close, I moved out of the apartment I shared with Ed and moved into a studio apartment with Chris. To summarize very briefly, Chris and I were like oil and water; we didn't mesh very well. In retrospect, I recognize that he was a very nice guy and was more selfless than a lot of college students, but our senses of humor were very different to the point where his sarcasm offended me to the core. Because he was my roommate, he would sometimes challenge me in a sports game on the Genesis; usually it was NHL 95 or Madden 93, which I was still playing despite my owning Madden 94 (in my opinion, the game quality got worse between Madden 93 and Madden 94). During those games, Chris was highly proficient at mind games. For instance, if he were losing, he would say, "Oh, I had to scratch my arm, so I messed up that play," as if my winning were accidental; conversely, if he were winning, he would tout his video game greatness. It used to wear on me like the proverbial nails on a chalkboard. One day, Ed visited me and made an off-hand comment about Chris. For reasons I still do not fully understand, I was enraged at being reminded of Chris, so I proceeded to smash my beloved Madden 93 cartridge with a hammer and threw the entire package down the garbage chute.

Thus, I destroyed the cartridge. That was 24 years ago.

For years, I regretted my rash actions. It was very counterproductive for me to annihilate my own property, but to do so with a game I thoroughly enjoyed was an especially poignant regret. Up until the end of my college days, I had a problem with anger that occasionally drove me to destroy things. Even as a born-again Christian now, I am still plagued with this rage, but I do not wreck things as I used to do. It is a tendency that I endeavor to eliminate in my character.

Fast-forward to last night. After I purchased Madden 93 for the second time, I feel as if I have corrected a past mistake. I know that God is not concerned with wrecked cartridges or video games, but I would like to think that He chose to bless me with it again. I vow to care for this cartridge and enjoy it again with Ed, as well as my sons.

By the way, regarding the game itself, it is one of the easiest football games to learn in the world of video games, especially compared to Madden games on the XBox or PlayStation. With three buttons and a directional pad, Madden 93 on the Sega Genesis is fun, fast, and readily accessible. Also, you receive the benefit of learning about American football. Of course, you would have to accept that in 1993 there were no two-point-conversions, Texans, Ravens, or Titans. Set those differences aside and you're in for a night full of entertainment.

To quote John Madden: BOOM! He'll remember that number!

Kobe Bryant: 1HN Clipper Nemesis

During my college days in the 1990s, I was a Los Angeles Clippers fan. No, this was before Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and Lob City. No, this was even before Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Sam Cassell, Cutino Mobley, and divisional playoff exits against the Phoenix Suns. Yes, it was the lean years of Loy Vaught, Rodney Rogers, Brent Barry, and lots of losing. They were a team that barely got on Channel 13 in Los Angeles with Ralph Waller doing his level best to provide expert play-by-play announcing and a semi-apathetic Bill Walton commentating. The Clippers were still owned by a penny-pinching owner and played in a desperately outdated L.A. Sports Arena. The mid-90s were not the salad days for this team.

Meanwhile, across town, the Lakers were also a middling team. I enjoyed that team with Cedric Ceballos scoring off garbage rebounds, Elden Campbell showing frustrating flashes of brilliance with long stretches of mediocrity, and a vibrant, young duo of Nick Van Exel and Eddie Jones playing consistently well. Then, in 1996, the Lakers acquired a high school phenomenon named Kobe Bryant in a post-draft day trade with the then-Charlotte Hornets for center Vlade Divac. Oh, and then they acquired Shaquille O'Neal... These were DEFINITELY not the salad days for the Clippers.

During my last year at UCLA, Kobe came off the bench and showed his own flashes of brilliance. I must have watched several Lakers games on NBC with my roommates during that year, and played as him in NBA Live 97. Recently, I played that game again, and discovered (again) that Kobe's attributes were not good enough for him to pull off crossovers. Indeed, his attributes in that weren't what they would end up being in future iterations of the classic EA Sports game, but they were certainly better than a lot of benchwarmers. In real life, sure, he had the Utah airballs and the Lakers crashed out of the playoffs, but he had that astounding combination of youth, athleticism, skill even at a young age, and audacity that indicated he would be something special in basketball.

In 1997, I left for Japan. In 1998, I returned, only to leave again in 1999. During my five continuous years in Japan, I followed the NBA and the exploits of the Lakers. I was able to watch the first game of the Finals against the Sixers, during which Allen Iverson and friends defeated the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers only to lose the next four games. The Lakers would go on to win three championships in a row. I returned to the U.S. for the last time in 2004... and rooted for the superstar-less Pistons to beat the Lakers, which they did after Karl Malone went down with an injury. From 1996 to 2016, Kobe Bryant was ever-present for me as a Clippers basketball fan. I have to admit that I wasn't a rabid fan of Kobe Bryant, but he was difficult to avoid in Southern California. I would hear all about his exploits on drive-time AM radio as I inched my way home in the midst of traffic, and I'm rather convinced that he played particularly hard against the Clippers, who continued to be the also-rans of Los Angeles, even into the early days of the aforementioned Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Three years ago, Kobe would end up retiring, but not before scoring 60 points in his last game as a professional basketball player. From the five NBA championships to the two gold medals (and eventually even an Oscar), Kobe served as one of the premier players of basketball, both globally and in the United States. He was also trilingual (English, Italian, and Spanish), which earned my linguistic respect. In any case, I didn't know Kobe Bryant personally, but whenever I chose to reinsert myself with basketball fandom, he seemed to be there.

Yesterday, as I left a movie theater with my family, my oldest son told me that Kobe Bryant had died. I found this news so incredible that I had to check the Internet myself. He, his daughter, and seven others died in a horrific helicopter crash earlier that day. I was shocked not only because nine people died in a tragic fashion, but also because a part of my past had passed away. After the previous seven days during which my family and I mourned the passing of three far-too-young men because of a senseless act of road rage, the deaths of nine souls caused me to revisit that sadness. Kobe Bryant wasn't any more or less important than the other eight people who lost their lives, but he has been etched in my memory as one of those sports figures that was a constant from my college days to my child-rearing adult days.

I lift up the families of the people who lost their lives in that helicopter crash. I pray that these families find comfort and solace in God.

Spinners: 1HN Long-Lasting Randomizer

Currently, one of the oddly popular fads among children in the United States is the fidget spinner, which is a three-pronged plastic or metal item that spins on its central axis on ball bearings. Apparently, fidget spinners are simply mental distractions that seem to have been intended as a tool to help children focus their fidgety energies on something without shifting in their seats. However, it has had the opposite effect of distracting children by drawing their attention to whomever is using one. I can see the end of this, though: eventually, EVERY boy (and girl?) will have one, get bored of it, and then cast it into a drawer of other junk.

An ironic parallel I see to the predictable fate of the fidget spinner is the spinner in board games. Certain "classic" American games featured spinners, particularly Life and the decidedly non-board game, Twister. As other Americans do, I have both happy and angry memories of these games. As many of you know, spinners are simply decision randomizers that spin on a central axis until the pointing part of the spun arrow or wheel ends up aiming at a space that indicates a number or course of action. It's rudimentarily mechanical, requiring a deft turn of hand or finger to manipulate it, yet it is not necessarily a component of dexterity games. On the contrary, in the two games mentioned above, spinners are the mode of randomization. In this sense, spinners are similar to any randomizer, like dice. This difference is a simple one: there is a visceral element to both kinds of randomizers that are dissimilar enough to separate those experiences from each other, at least in my mind. By this, with a spinner, I could spin it as fast or as slowly as I wanted, affording me the illusion of agency. In any case, whether it's spinning and landing on the best space in the game, or spinning and having to contort my body into an impossible Escher pretzel, using a spinner evokes flashbacks of joy and rage that are markedly different from the joy and rage of rolling dice.

I noted that there is an ironic parallel between game spinners and fidget spinners; this irony is evident in the state of games today. Among the more widely-recognized connoisseur games, spinners are not found, as far as I can recall. Most of the time, decision randomization takes the form of cards, dice, or even the BINGO mechanic of drawing chits or pieces blindly, yet you do not see spinners. One reason might be because of the form factor of certain spinners, like the one in Life; it is a considerably-sized piece of molded plastic that fits fine in the large game box of Life, but may not fit well, say, in a Pandemic box. Another reason might be that shoddy spinners can lead to cheesy results; for example, if the spinner board in your set of Twister is warped, when you attempt to spin that chintzy arrow, you may barely spin it to the next wedge on the decision wheel, which is irritating and completely eliminates the visceral fun of watching an arrow careering around the wheel. The most likely reason, though, may be the most insidious one: spinners seem childish and out of place in a "serious" board game.

In yet another layer of irony, it is this "guardianship of all that is good in gaming" that has both protected current games from being infected with old, horrible ideas (e.g., the "roll-and-move" mindlessness of Chutes/Snakes and Ladders) and prevented game designers from exploring old, not-so-awful ideas, like a spinner. As I type this, I can imagine a game designer creating a game that involves a default spinner that can be customized as you purchase wedge pieces to fit in the outer rim, reconfiguring the options that are randomly available. Couple this customizable spinner with the youthful delight of spinning something with all your might and you may have a game that combines a deck/bag/hand-building mechanic with a bit of childish fun. (I'm patenting this idea, by the way.)

Sadly, though, we do not find spinners in a lot of games, and I think this is because board game enthusiasts seem to favor games that they can readily dissociate from those awful roll-and-move days of their childhoods. I certainly understand this because I used to have an aversion to dice (traumatic memories of Risk!), poppers (Trouble!), BINGO, and even the luck of the draw (I'm talking about you, War and Uno!). However, as I look at those older games from a perspective shaped by years of Euro gaming, I wonder if enthusiasts have forgotten about the primal joy of pressing a popper, rolling handfuls of dice against another dice-chucker, and even the sheer elation of drawing the high card. This leads me back to the comparison between the fidget spinner and the game spinner; one is an intriguing, somewhat distracting fad that will fade; the other is an often derided and disregarded game mechanic that has lasted a long time. Why not ride the wave of a fad and bring back the game spinner in an entirely different way? Rise of Augustus brought back BINGO in my mind, so I think a Euro game can incorporate a fidget... er, game spinner.

Rush 'n Attack: 1HN Knife Knavery

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Even concerning unfavorable events and outcomes, many of us can still wax nostalgic about the results of those situations. However, in my mind, there are some games and hobbies about which I cannot reminisce enthusiastically or even lukewarmly. One of those games used to be Rush ‘n Attack by Konami, but after a decades-long journey I can discuss this one-time stinker.

Rush ‘n Attack was a Nintendo Entertainment System game that was released in 1985. It was a well-rendered platform side-scroller that was somewhat realistic by 8-bit standards compared to relatively cartoonish games like Super Mario Brothers; Rush ‘n Attack had detailed sprites, semi-realistic Cold War-inspired backgrounds, heart-pumping music, and relentless bad guys. Much like Konami's other offerings at the time, characters were strinkingly humanoid in appearance; in fact, character design was similar to characters in Castlevania and Double Dribble, which were two other games from Konami's stable. When I first received Rush ‘n Attack, I was excited because Konami meant quality. Because I liked Double Dribble, I believed I would like Rush ‘n Attack. Even when I first inserted the cartridge into my NES console, I was certain I would enjoy myself thoroughly.

However, I realized rather quickly how arduous a task it would be to play this game. The game opens with your character outside an enemy base somewhere in Russia or someplace. (Of course, it required little imagination to comprehend that "Rush 'n" meant "Russian".) It's a bleak, gray winter day and all you're armed with is a knife. then the bad guys rush at you. what are you supposed to do? Well, you're supposed to rush and attack (Get it?). And so I did. With one button for jump and another button for attack, I rushed at the enemy with deft presses of the D-pad. Suddenly, a barrage of bullets arrived. I leapt to dodge the incoming bullets, but one bullet grazed my boot. In game-speak, it was but one pixel of my boot. Yet, that was enough to kill my character rather unceremoniously. Rapidly, I re-spawned and attacked again. Once again, another bullet grazed me by one pixel and my character was downed. This process repeated once more until all three lives were lost. End of game. No save points. No starting where I left off. When your character died in Rush ‘n Attack, you started from the very beginning. There was not even a Konami code to give me more lives. I was done right there.

Frustrated, I tried again. I got a little farther, but I died again. So, I tried again. Each time, I would advance a little farther and die again. Sadly, each time, I had to start at the very beginning. Eventually, I would get to Level 2 and then Level 3. However, after losing three lives, I had no choice but to return to the very first level. Frustration would turn to angst, and angst would compel me to eject the cartridge in extreme disgust and disdain.

To be fair, controls were responsive and gameplay was brisk, but the mountains of cheese in this game were undeniable. Of course, there was the aforementioned death by a pixel. More annoying than that was having to start at the absolute initial position of the game after losing all your lives. Yet, what was most disheartening about this game was that sinking feeling of powerlessness. Except for your knife, weapons have ammunition limits with no hope of replenishment except for picking up a new weapon. Moreover, there were no super weapons in this game; there was no spread gun like in Contra, no Batman batarangs, and no Marioesque invincibility. Tragically, in the end, it was just you and your knife.

It took little time for me to trade the game away. I could tolerate it no further and had to remove it from my sight as soon as humanly possible. At the time, Rush ‘n Attack seemed like a rare dud from Konami and a stark reminder of how flawed this world truly is. Nonetheless, like God's grace, there was a silver lining to this story: I managed to trade the game away for Solomon's Key, which also proved to be frustrating, but in a challenging, positive way.

For decades, I lived with the psychological trauma of Rush ‘n Attack. However, a few years ago, I found a video on YouTube. Sometimes, people post videos of their speed runs through games, attempting to finish them in record time. For example, one person posted a video of finishing Super Metroid in 90 minutes. Similar to that, someone posted a speed run of Rush ‘n Attack. As I watched, I witnessed something that stoked uncontrollable and hearty laughter. Throughout the entire speed run, the player simply tap the knife button repeatedly and rushed forward to the very far right edge of the screen. Foes scattered like so many leaves. The player persisted in this way with nary an incoming bullet, literally rushing through level after level with just a knife. I was awestruck with how easy the player made it all appear. I wondered why I had not read about this in Nintendo Power magazine so many years ago. (Kids, there was no Internet back in those days!)

Oddly, witnessing that herculean feat redeemed the game in my mind. I took comfort in knowing that there was greater cheese to overcome this game's cheese. I had found solace and rest as if some profound injustice had been addressed. Even stranger was the urge to play that game again after having beheld that indescribable spectacle. Indeed, that game is long gone and it's just as well that it is. Nevertheless, I can now wax nostalgic about Rush ‘n Attack, and it's a miracle that I can wax nostalgic about it, even though it took me decades to do so.

Baseball: 1HN Normalizer

For much of my elementary schools years and the first of my junior high school years, I often felt like an outsider, different from most kids. I don't think it was my affinity for Dungeons & Dragons or for video games that set me apart, or my taste in music (Def Leppard!), or my love of school and learning. Deeper than those things, I didn't talk or act like "normal" kids, whatever "normal" means. Maybe it was my vocabulary or maybe it was my eccentric interests after all... I couldn't put my finger on it. I'm sure some of you can relate, but there was always that notion that would emerge from deep within my psyche whenever I was around people: "Why don't I fit in?"

Interestingly, this seemed to change sometime in eighth grade: I started collecting baseball cards. At first, it was something to do with my cousin Mark, who was a collector himself; we would go to Price Club (now Costco) and buy a box of Topps cards... 1987 Topps cards, to be exact. I remember opening the packs with a petrified stick of pink that left an oily residue on the unfortunate piece of cardboard that happened to be placed next to it. I often ignored the gum. I would then organize the cards by teams and look at the Team Leaders card -- the one that listed the home run, RBI, and batting average leaders of each team on it. Then, I would trade for those players with my cousin. At the time, I didn't really think I was swindling him, but I was. Around that time, my interest in baseball cards caught the interest of my friend Ed, who was himself becoming a collector. We used to trade with each other, go to baseball card conventions, and laugh about the Walt Terrell rookie card that we almost acquired (I don't know why, but it was funny at the time to want to labor so hard to buy the rookie card of an OK player).

Inevitably, collecting baseball cards led to an interest in watching baseball, which led to a more profound interest in playing baseball. Throughout my eighth-grade year, I played baseball almost every day in the street in front of my house with two kids much younger than I was, a tennis ball, and a street reflector serving as home plate. We used to practice switch-hitting; to this day, I still marvel at the fact that I was able to hit the ball over a distant lightpole left-handed. Sure, it was against an 11-year-old pitcher, but it was still awesome to a 14-year-old.

Honing my skills on the mean streets of my hometown compelled me to try my hand at organizing baseball; Little League, that is, or at least "little" for 15-year-olds. I played one season of baseball with the A's and played first base, second base, third base, and all three outfield positions during that season. I was a decent hitter (I hit over .300, I think), I could steal bases (which was a surprise because before ninth grade I was officially slow), and I had a cannon for an arm, but I was also hot-headed and hated to make mistakes. Nobody was harder on me than me, and that was my greatest obstacle in baseball: I had a hard time overcoming my own mistakes. Sadly, though that baseball season wasn't a bad one and my team placed second in its league, the luster of the game was lost on me because I was not happy with myself. I'll come back to this point later.

After that baseball season, I turned my back on baseball. In high school, I ran cross country and swam on the swim team. In college, my favorite sport was basketball, mostly because I was good at fighting for rebounds and I could always make up for a mistake on one end of the floor with a key play at the other end of the floor. I did play intramural softball, though, and I even felt the buzz of baseball enough to play a few practice sessions a couple of co-workers at a local park. Besides lofting pitches over the Little League fence of that field at which we played, I still remember making a nice diving catch of a line drive over second base, which earned the applause of my buddies. I know it was just practice, but it felt good to know that I could pull out a spectacular play once in a while. After college, I rarely, if ever, played softball or baseball. Basketball, and then running, became my favorite sports and I enjoyed playing them.

However, recently, I've been watching (for the third time) Ken Burns' superlative documentary series, Baseball, which was originally released in 1994. As I watch that series, I am not only reminded of how much I liked baseball and how fascinating the figures of yore are, but I also remember the greatest impact baseball had on me: it normalized me in so many ways. First, I have come to realize that that some skill in a sport can earn the respect of other boys and men much more than intellectual or social talent can do. As a socially-awkward seventh-grader, I had few friends, and the friends that I did have were just as fringe as I was. Yet, as I made it to ninth-grade, I began to earn the respect of other boys because I could play baseball. In fact, one of my Little League teammates once vouch for my skills in front of some popular boys; of course, those popular guys didn't heed his endorsements, but I could certainly hit as far as, if not farther than, they could hit. Secondly, I had something "normal" to discuss with other boys; it was definitely more accepted to talk about Kirk Gibson's dramatic home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series than it was to talk about Armor Class or saving throws (D&D references here). However, beyond the physical skill and the ability to discuss a "normal" subject, baseball not only gave me access to guys who were not so academically-inclined, but it made me more accessible. To this day, I can talk baseball with some of my running friends and I actually have something to discuss; without baseball (or sports knowledge, in general), many guys (Americans, at least) are inaccessible. By this, I contend that the most noteworthy power of sports is that it allows us to reach others, hopefully with the hope of Christ and as an encourager.

There is one more aspect of myself that baseball normalized: the epiphany that mistakes are a part of the game and of life. As a ninth-grader on a Little League team, my love of baseball was diminished because of my inability to recover emotionally from my own mistakes. For much of my life, I had trouble overcoming the fact that I had deficiencies and that I would lose games. That was why I often avoided playing board games, video games, or even sports against people; I didn't like losing. Sadly, it took years of experience to comprehend that I cannot be afraid to lose or make mistakes, and that I learn best from mistakes. I try to instill this in my sons, hoping that they would not be paralyzed by the fear of failure. Every sport presents experiences of failure, particularly baseball because if you make a defensive error early in a baseball game, that error may be the reason your team loses despite your best efforts.

Yet, instead of backing away from failure, I tell my boys to rise to any challenge, and that it is okay to fail or lose because you can learn from it and be better in the future. To most of us, this is sententious and trite because we hear it in so many ways from so many inconsequential people, but one thing I rarely heard as a child was that failure was okay only if I learned a lesson from it and strove to not replicate the error. In this sense, baseball normalized me because it made me confront failure, embrace its lessons, and be diligent about moving past it instead of dwelling on it or, even worse, giving up altogether. I pray that my sons will step forward willingly to meet every challenge, every ground ball, every line drive, and catch that ball or make that play. Win or lose, we can grow from the moment and revel in the idea that we never backed down. To me, that is "normal."

Settlers of Canaan: 1HN Catan Redux

Among Christians, there seems to be a trend towards taking "secular" games and adding a Judeo-Christian flavor to it. The obvious examples of this are such games as Bible Scattergories and Bible Taboo (which is funnily ironic name), but some lesser-known ones are Ark of the Covenant, which was based on Carcassonne, and Redemption, which was the Christian community's response to Magic: The Gathering (it was not a copy of its gameplay, but it copied the collectability of Magic). Yet another prime example is Settlers of Canaan, which is the spitting image of Settlers of Catan.

Settlers of Canaan is, by and large, the same game as Catan. Much like Catan, the Settlers of Canaan board is laid out in hexagons with each one producing one of five resources: grain, sheep, wood, clay, and ore; and, each hex has a number from 2 to 12. You start off with placing a settlement and a road at the vertices of three hexagons. After each player has laid out two settlements and two roads (the two settlements may or may not connect to each other), they gather up one card for each resource their settlements touch. Then, gameplay begins. For those who are familiar with Catan, Canaan is very similar: a player rolls two dice, and then all players, including the rolling player, collect resource cards for each hex that their settlements touch that matches the number rolled. After that, the current player gets to trade resources with other players and build settlements, cities, and roads, or acquire development cards depending on which resources he or she possess. Canaan's Development cards are also similar to Catan's development cards, except that there are "Priest" cards instead of "Knight" cards and there are thematic cards that are similar in effect to Catan cards, but named differently. As in Catan, Canaan has bonuses for the longest road (two points) and most priests (two points). There are also developments that award victory points, just as in Catan. 

It would be too easy to state that Catan and Canaan are essentially the same game, but there are four key differences. The first difference is that the hexes in Canaan are fixed in position on a gameboard, whereas the hexes and numbers are randomly placed at the start of each game in Catan. This gives Catan a fresh feel every game, while Canaan's board is set (yet sufficiently balanced in its placement of resources, in my opinion). The second difference is that the Canaan has Jerusalem and its wall at the lower part of the board; players can add a stone to the wall of Jerusalem by spending the appropriate resources during their turns. Whoever has a majority of stones in Jerusalem's wall gets a two-point bonus and a favorable trade ratio of two of any resource chosen for the "King's Blessing" in exchange for one of any other resource. The third key difference is the Robber: in Catan, if you roll a 7, you control the Robber, a nefariously black token that can be placed on a hex, rendering that hex ineffective until the Robber is moved. In addition, the player who places the Robber can then take a card from a player whose settlement is touching the occupied hex. Thus, it is called the "Robber." However, in Canaan, the Robber is called "the Plague." It works the same way as in Catan, except that a dark stone is placed in Jerusalem's wall. Lastly, there is a copper hex that provides one resource of a player's choice if a 10 is rolled and a player has a settlement touching that hex; this is somewhat minor, yet noteworthy because there is no "wild" tile in Settlers of Catan and this may affect early-game settlement placement.

Gameplay continues in Canaan until a player gains twelve victory points, which is two more than Catan, thus extending the game a bit. Points are tracked on the gameboard on a separate counter, so the need for math during the game is reduced (unlike Catan, in which there is no scoreboard and you have to constantly count people's settlements and cities). As with Catan, the accumulation of settlements and cities is important, but the most fun part of both games is negotiation. Can I get the ore and grain I need to transform my one-point settlement into a two-point city? Will someone trade me that clay I need to build that settlement? Will I get that clay and stone I need to allow me to lay that precious stone in Jerusalem so that I can take the King's Blessing from someone? All of these questions are more often solved in trading than with mere dice rolls; this is the beauty of Catan and Canaan.

The Settlers of Canaan, much like Catan, is a wonderful family game that also serves as a gateway game to more complex Euro-style games, which are often economy-based with indirect competition. In Canaan, you don't trounce your opponents as much as lock them out of certain hexes with key settlement placements. In this way, I can see how Cactus Game Design saw that they could tweak the classic Catan with a Judeo-Christian theme and it would be palatable for Christian families. I certainly understand that sentiment and am appreciative of it, but I admit that, of all games, Catan was one game that didn't need a makeover. By itself, it's a fine family game that is non-violent and only as cutthroat as the players who play it. I have played Catan and Canaan and found that Catan would be just as agreeable as Canaan, if not better because Catan has a bevy of expansions from which you can enhance the game. One thing I should mention is that I suppose that the concept of "stealing" wasn't Christian enough, so the "Robber" was changed to a "Plague, but is "Plague" really better than a "Robber?" I mean, I know that it's wrong and sinful to steal, but it's a legitimate game action to take someone's card with the Robber/Plague; if it's a legit move, is it really "robbing?" In my opinion, it is this kind of kneejerk reaction to secondary elements in games that often drives the Christian-theme market (and sells games to overly "religious" people).

This takes me to a point I made in a previous post about magic: I don't have a hard and fast rule against all references to magic in games. If magic is an integral part of a game, I make a determination about whether it would affect me and my sons or not. However, if it's an ancillary part of the game, such as it is in the Zelda video games or in such board games as Dominion, I may allow it depending on the imagery and the rules. I look at Catan in the same way when it comes to "robbing"; I know it's not stealing in the sinful sense, and I know that it's defined in the rules. Why can't we just call it "robbing" instead of a "Plague," which just sounds even more awful, in my opinion?

Castlevania: 1HN Self-Sufficient Devil Hunter

Right after I got my NES, one of the first games I received as a gift was Castlevania. I don't remember why I got that game: did I ask for it? Did Mom think it would be a game that I'd like? Did another family member give it to me? I'm not sure, but I do remember that it was one of the first games I had.

What more can be said about Castlevania? For those who are not familiar, Castlevania is a side-scrolling platformer that was one of Konami's flagship titles. In the game, you play Simon Belmont, a whip-wielding nobleman who enter's Dracula's castle with no other mission but to destroy Dracula and break his curse. Along the way, you encounter every cliched horror monster conceived: bats, mummies, zombies, creatures from the Blue Lagoon, dead knights, Frankenstein, and Igor... Or, at least, a bunch of leaping hunchbacks. All the while, you whip candles and walls to get upgrades to your whip (which ultimately becomes a rather elastic ball-and-chain morning-star-like weapon), special weapons like holy water, cross-shaped boomerangs, axes, and daggers, as well as hearts for ammunition, pork chops for health, and treasures for extra points.

As with many NES games, each level of Castlevania is capped with an end boss, whom you must fight to proceed to the next level. After traversing the first level of the castle, you encounter a giant bat who swoops down at you repeatedly. It is defeated somewhat easily, but then an entire castle awaits with more levels and bosses. At the end of the game, you are challenged by Dracula, but he's not the last boss; after you behead Dracula, an immense leaping rock monster attacks you, knocking you around as your life meter decreases to a dangerously low point...

...and, then, you die. At least, that's what always happened to me because I was never able to beat Castlevania -- not as a teenager and not in recent history.

Castlevania is a game about which I used to be quite conflicted. On the one hand, all of the horror film and literature conventions are in the game: ghouls, monsters, Dracula, torches, skeletons (both animated and as piles of bones), holy water, crosses that clear away the undead, and the like. My Christian radar often blipped at every demonic image on the screen I  encountered when I played recently. I thought about what kind of influence this game would have on my boys: would they develop an interest in horror films? Would they pursue knowledge of the occult? Would they pretend to be Simon Belmont or Dracula?! All of the stereotypically Christian concerns crossed my mind as I considered the implications of a horror-themed video game. On the other hand, you are Simon Belmont, who was sent to vanquish evil, armed with holy water and crosses. These are Catholic elements to be sure, but one cannot deny even a slight Christian influence on the protagonists of some horror movies and themes. After all, who is a more frightening adversary than Satan and his minions? In that sense, Castlevania is spiritual warfare played out on-screen: it's good versus evil presented in a blatant and obvious way. In addition, Castlevania is an excellent platformer with fine graphics, a memorable soundtrack, and gameplay that challenges you and gives you some freedom of movement. Except for some cheesy villains, Castlevania plays rather smoothly for an NES game and has replayability, even after you defeat Dracula and his winged beast.

Despite how well-crafted the game is, I sold Castlevania and Castlevania II as a bundle on eBay, along with their original retail boxes and instructions for the first Castlevania. Once again, a personal conviction led me to rid myself of something I didn't think would be a positive influence on my boys. As a teenager, I didn't live a life pursuing Christ, so I did what I wanted to do. At the time, Castlevania seemed harmless to me, but I looked at the game with renewed eyes and determined that it was games like Castlevania that did affect me as a younger person. If anything, like magic, I may have looked at horror themes and demons as entertaining and fun. Even though demons and supernatural monsters were villains, there was always an implied coolness to them; today, with the proliferation of zombie and vampire TV shows, that seems to be Hollywood's opinion. However, I see things differently: in most, if not all horror-influenced TV shows and movies, God rarely plays the role of vanquisher; instead, it is often through human ingenuity and perseverance that supernatural evil is defeated. In this way, what I find as a negative influence in horror-themed entertainment is not the imagery or storylines as much as the insidious idea that we don't need God to vanquish evil; we'll just do it fine on our own, thank you very much. "We don't need Jesus; we just need each other." It's a perspective that infects the mind, convincing us that we are better than we think we are.

Thus, is playing or owning Castlevania a sin? I don't think so, but it's one of those things that plants a seed of doubt in one's mind. For an adult, it may not be so dangerous, but to plant such a seed in the mind of a child could be spiritually damaging. Not everyone else is the same when it comes to the effects of horror themes in entertainment, but when it comes to my boys, since I'm accountable to God for them I shouldn't risk exposing them to the idea that we can conquer Satan and his demons just fine on our own.

Why Families Need Board Games, Part I

A few weeks ago, my wife, my sons, and I led a Board Game night for several families. To start the Board Game night, I presented 15 minutes of game information and etiquette for everyone, to which the adults politely listened while the children squirmed and squawked (note: PowerPoint presentations and children don't mix well). After my hastily-concluded presentation, my wife, my sons, and I led four different game sessions to introduce new games to the families there: my wife led a game of Dixit, my oldest son led a game of Carcassonne, my youngest son led a game of Fluxx (which is NOT a board game, but it didn't really matter), and I guided youngsters through a game of Balloon Lagoon.

As we all conducted our individual games, I found time to patrol the tables and monitor how people were adapting to the new games. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the parents and children were learning the games quickly and engrossing themselves in the nuances of each one. The little ones at my Balloon Lagoon tables were especially eager to play a second round, which I certainly allowed them to do. Another child had even taken it upon himself to start another group game of Ticket to Ride, which he had brought to teach others. Thus, the first round of gaming ended well as we all headed into a break, which was when I observed and realized an "inconvenient truth..."

The plan for the evening was to conduct a second round of gaming during which some of the young ones would teach their own favorite board games to the adults. However, as Round 2 was set to commence, it was painfully clear that almost all of the children no longer had any interest in playing board games. Some of them migrated to another room to play with Beyblades; a few boys went upstairs to pillow fight; and several other children seemed to wander around shooting Nerf guns. It was then that I grasped a basic notion: most kids have short attention spans. This wasn't an earth-shattering discovery, but what struck me was that while my sons were open to the idea of more board games, the other kids were not so eager, which led to the earth-shattering discovery:

Many people today have trouble with board games!

Why is that? I pondered the reasons for these children (and adults) not being eager to dive into another round of more profound strategic thinking and discovery. Maybe, it's because people are used to the audiovisual splendor and attention-sapping energy of video games; maybe, it's because board games take time to set up and play; maybe, it's because people are just too busy or distracted to play board games. It could even be because people are too "plugged into" their mobile devices and tablets to shut them off and actually touch tangible game elements. These reasons and others have swirled around in my head for some time after that game meeting, and I contend that all of the reasons I listed are acceptable ones.Yet, I have a better, more over-arching reason for why many kids (and even adults) cannot sit for an extended period of time and play a board game even though those same people can sit and play video or computer games for hours:

The "world" wants us to be plugged in and reliant on technology for entertainment, business, and our very livelihoods.

The "world" is corporations that want to sell us goods with built-in obsolescence so that we buy more in three to five years. The "world" is the entertainment industry (Hollywood, if you will) that wants us to buy its mind-numbing, non-life-affirming movies, its vapid, insipid popular music, and its haughtily amoral television shows. The "world" is video and computer game makers that only seek to satiate and enthrall while promoting sexuality, violence, and unimaginative, profane abuses of language. The "world" tells us we are not smart enough to think on our own, to conduct daily life without technology, and the "world" tells us that we must always be having its brand of "fun" or else life is awful. We are all being shaped by this "world" and the incursions and invasions this "world" has masterminded against our psyches are methodically reshaping us into thrill-seeking, attention-lacking, over-multi-tasked consumers sans a moral compass.

How do we stop the "world" from transforming us into lemmings? One way is through board games.

(To be continued)

Netrunner: 1HN Jettisoned Cargo

From my pre-teen years to my college years, I was a collector. At first, I collected baseball cards, but those companies flooded the card market with overprinted sets, so collectors (who believed the hype of the increased collectibility of baseball cards) bought mass amounts of cards only to watch the value of those cards plummet. I then collected comic books, specifically X-Men derived titles; I really enjoyed those stories, but comic book publishers failed to learn from the mistakes of the baseball card companies, oversaturated the market, and values dropped greatly. After that came a relatively new kind of collectible: the collectible card game. Magic: The Gathering was one of the forerunners and not much needs to be said right now about that game (which I may write more about later), but another game came out of the same publisher as Magic called Netrunner.

For the unitiated, Netrunner was a collectible card game with a cyberpunk theme and what was a novel approach at the time: one player plays as the "Runner," a hacker-like individual whose sole purpose is to extract information from the Corporation, which is played by the other player. The Corporate has its own agendas, literally: the Corporation's goal is to score points by completing agendas while resisting the incursions of the Runner. Both sides have cards that are specific to their roles: Runners can use Hardware, Resource, and Icebreaker cards to assist them in penetrating the Ice, Nodes, and Upgrades of the Corporation. It was first released in 1996 and only one expansion was ever released widely for it. Netrunner was the hot game among card gamers until 1999 or so when Wizards of the Coast (the publisher of Magic: The Gathering) stopped producing it.

As I write this review, it surprises me how Netrunner is still strongly supported even 17 years after its initial release. In 1996, I purchased a few double-deck packs and several Limited and Proteus boosters. Being the collector that I was, I bought enough cards to amass almost 700 cards. But, over time, I packed the cards away and forgot about them... Until three years ago, when I unearthed my Netrunner and Magic cards. Then and now, many "professional" reviewers have pointed at Netrunner as the most well-balanced, well-designed collectible card game out there; no one card is so powerful that it tilts the game in one player's favor and is abused en masse. Based on my observations and readings, I believe that is true. I never got to play against a human opponent (I only playtested decks against myself), but I read enough of the rules and strategy guides out there to see how much more balanced cards are (despite rarity) than Magic cards are and how much more diversity there is with deck strategies than there are with Magic decks.

All of this said, an interesting thing happened regarding the first release of this review. A few weeks ago, I published this review here and at Board Game Geek, stating the following in what was the initial part of my concluding paragraph:

"As a Christian, I rid myself of Magic cards because the motif and imagery was not compatible with my convictions, despite the wonderfully complex rules, strategies, and interactions involved with Magic: The Gathering. Netrunner has a comparable level of complexity, but with only a few objectionable images and even more equality among deck designs, even with a much smaller inventory of existing cards."

After I published this review, I got quite a few replies, even some just criticisms, about my views on Netrunner vis-a-vis Magic: The Gathering and how it seemed like I found corporate espionage and murder acceptable, but not the occult imagery of Magic. I thought about it and realized that those critics were right -- my opinion of Netrunner were inconsistent with my convictions regarding the possible negative influences of games. Thus, I sold my cards, perhaps to someone who does not have the convictions I have (I had already sold off/thrown away my Magic cards).

Many people can compartmentalize their own convictions related to games because they are at peace with the notion that those games are "just games." However, for me, I feel compelled to act on my convictions, which is to say that I don't believe that playing Netrunner or any game is inherently sinful (i.e. fracturing one's relationship with God), but the themes and actions taken in a game must be considered, as well as the intent of those actions, when choosing which game to play and, more importantly, in determining what possible influences that game may have. This process of analyzing the benefits and detriments of each game is an ongoing one and there aren't many firm rules, but I do have some, such as no violence with villainous intent. As I get older and I watch my boys get older, I often ask myself, "Is any particular game something I'd want to see my boys play now?" As I seriously considered Netrunner, I concluded that I wouldn't want my boys playing this game because much of the moral decisions one makes in the game are relativistic at best; for example, as one commenter pointed out, the game glorifies hacking, which is normally a criminal activity (except for "white" hacking, which serves the purpose of testing a company's network and data security). I surmised that I did not want to convey the message to my boys that computer theft was acceptable, which led me to the overdue conclusion that Netrunner was not a game for me or my family. That said, if you, the reader, are an adult and your conscience is clear concerning Netrunner, then you should exercise your freedom to play. If anything, playing Netrunner may allow you to connect with people who would never play games with a Christian otherwise.

Max Headroom: 1HN Dystopian Portent

Whenever I mention the name "Max Headroom" to people my age, they often remember the old Coca-Cola commercials of the mid-80s or the Max Headroom show on Cinemax, but most people do not remember that for parts of two seasons, there was an ABC network show called Max Headroom (for those uber-nerds out there, I am well aware that Max Headroom debuted in Great Britain with a different pilot and mostly a different cast, but I'm focusing on the US version). To those people who recognized the name, I would tell them about that show and their eyes would glaze over. Then, I would move the conversation quickly in another direction...

Max Headroom took place in the future; "20 minutes in the future" as the opening tagline of the show stated. The series revolved around Edison Carter (played convincingly by Matt Frewer), a passionate, temperamental news reporter/cameraman, and his digital alter ego, Max Headroom, who was capricious, fun-loving, and unpredictable. Each episode involved Edison Carter attempting to investigate, at great risk to himself, a news story while aided by his trusty controller Theora Jones (Amanda Pays), his gruff, but sympathetic editor Murray (Jeffrey Tambor), and a boy genius named Bryce Lynch (Chris Young). All of the aforementioned people worked for Network 23, which was one of the most influential networks in the world. All the while, Max Headroom zoomed from TV screen to TV screen, wreaking havoc and yet assisting Edison and Theora whenever he happened to want to help.

Max Headroom was a character-driven science-fiction show that featured many fine acting performances, but what stood out was the dystopian, somewhat Blade Runner-type (but less foreboding, at least superficially) future that served as the stark backdrop for all of the episodes with crumbling ruins and towering, monolithic skyscrapers coexisting in close proximity and the poor living in ruins with nothing more than their clothes and a TV. In the future, everyone owns a TV and it has to be kept on and active and people seem to watch addictively. It is a future when networks devise advertising strategies to control people's minds and manipulate them psychologically and physically (as seen in the pilot episode during which "blipvert" three-second advertisements cause a large, slothful man to explode). Networks and massive corporations rule the landscape, the rich are indeed richer, and the poor are numerous, but never without a TV (which are handed out freely by the prevailing government). Ultimately, ratings are king, establishing a network's political and social clout with "two-way sampling" truly meaning that people watch TV and the networks watch them. In these ways, the future is almost like a main character in each episode, working for or against the intrepid Edison Carter and his trusty crew.

At the same time, there is a retro look to the future: keyboards are like clunky typewriters, cars are modeled after Packards and Tuckers (old cars from the 40s and 50s), and fashion seems to reflect a timeless sensibility wisely removed from 80s fashion... mostly. If anything, Max Headroom more resembles the film Brazil (which was released to theaters before Max Headroom was on TV; was Max Headroom influenced by Brazil?). Particularly, the character of Edison Carter is a Lone Ranger, standing against corporate and network injustice. Yet, he is also employed by a network, so he is often at odds with his own employers. Nonetheless, the never-anachronistic value of liberty over governement control is apparent in every episode.

Looking back at Max Headroom, what was especially striking about the show (besides the digitally stuttery delivery of the titular character) was that it was a view of the future that wasn't off the mark. Consider that Max Headroom was on the air 25 years ago, and yet the show foretold the ubiquity of TVs, how addictive and essential TV and video screens in general would become for people, and how much sway advertising and social media would have on people. Max Headroom was also portentous in its exposition of consumerism, which was assumed to be rampant in the future when people consume to make themselves happy and find fulfillment. Sure, discussing the rise of consumerism isn't an impressive prediction considering how consumerism was rampant in the 80s, but the satire is biting nonetheless. Moreover, the show also introduced a counter-cultural idea that is becoming more prevalent today: the idea of living off the grid, disconnected from mainstream media and utilities. These "blanks" in Max Headroom are much like the much-derided off-the-gridders of today that decry modern dependencies and favor a more wide-open, unfettered existence. It won't be long before "blanks" become more and more common today as people tire of everyone knowing everything about them and of our dependence on public utilities and foreign-grown produce.

What is more disquieting about the show in hindsight from a Christian standpoint is that the show (perhaps inadvertently) displays an End Times-type of future in which people are microchipped (at least, Metro cops are microchipped), religion is portrayed as flummery, and a global world order (ruled by TV) is suggested with corporations and ratings virtually governing people's actions. In this way, besides the principal characters, people are generally portrayed as "sheeple" who are more interested in the next TV show than in the welfare of others. Today, we are not far off from this future; we may not have flying cars (a la Blade Runner) or electromorphic AI like Max Headroom, but TV and, more alarmingly, smartphones have become essential for many. Screens of all kinds seem to hypnotize and anesthetize us as we walk around with our heads down or with our noses touching our screens.

Slowly, quietly, people are being blinded. Thirty years ago, even though I wasn't a believer in Christ, I knew about general End Times predictions. I used to scoff at the idea of microchips (aka "The Mark of the Beast") being implanted in people because I assumed that people would also know about those same End Times prediction and would avoid microchips like the plague. I used to think that someone would stop the rise of a "new world order" and deny the emergence of a leader that would herald himself as a modern savior, but would then turn against humanity. Nowadays, I'm not sure they wouldn't welcome the convenience of having their credit information and personal history implanted in their bodies; after all, it would beat carrying cash or having to carry or lose a wallet. I'm also not sure that people wouldn't welcome a unified global government with a leader that dictates our actions from on high; as long as we are entertained and given smartphones and our fair share of food and handouts, we won't want to rebel.

In summation, Max Headroom was an outstanding show that was indeed ahead of its time with predictions that are currently being played out now. The acting was top-notch and the veiled satire in each storyline was on par with the social commentary of the Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek series (which was actually a vehicle for social commentary, despite the wonderfully amusing histrionics of William Shatner). It is no wonder that this show was moved from time slot to time slot and eventually cancelled; much like Edison Carter, Max Headroom represented too much of a seering jab at TV and modern society to stick around. When I watch Max Headroom now, I am compelled to open my eyes to see a somewhat frightening world, the horrors of which are often obfuscated by "entertainment" and the self-gratification that comes with video games and constant Internet connectivity. I am reminded that people should stand up against the tyranny of our screens and resist being enfolded into a system that shall eventually monitor our every move once we surrender our freedom to be individuals. Already, Facebook and other social media sites retain our personal information and have been known to share it. Indeed, "20 minutes in the future" is now.

Nobunaga's Ambition: 1HN Confusion in Defeat

When I was an undergrad, I studied Japanese language, history, and culture. Admittedly, at the time, I wasn't much of a language student and much preferred the elective history classes I took over learning kanji and memorizing dialogues. One day, while I was browsing the game stacks at Electronics Boutique, I happened upon Nobunaga's Ambition, which instantly caught my eye because of my appreciation of Japanese history, particularly the warlord period before the Edo/Tokugawa period (1600-1868). It was during that period when Japan's three greatest warlords brought about events that would unify the Japanese archipelago. This game focuses on the time period of Oda Nobunaga's rise to power. He was the first of the three great warlords (who were technically not "shogun," but are often considered as such) and was probably the most fascinating of the three for his penchant for megalomania and ambition to establish himself as a leader to be worshipped.

Even knowing a little about Oda Nobunaga should interest anyone in a strategy game about conquering domains, forming alliances through marriage, and conducting trade, which is what Nobunaga's Ambition promised as a game. I remember when I first opened the game and inserted it into my Sega Genesis. I actually perused the rather substantial manual -- I didn't just scan it, but read it deeply. I started the game and duly chose to be Oda Nobunaga. I was assaulted with the bright 16-bit glory of Genesis graphics and inundated with information about my domain and my military strength. Things started out so well and I was fully prepared to engage in hours of strategic gaming...

Except it didn't last hours. In fact, my first game didn't last more than 10 minutes because in short order I invaded a neighbor, got routed, tried forming an alliance and failed, and then got routed by another neighbor who took advantage of my weakness. I recall not being upset or frustrated, but confused. What just happened? What on Earth could I have done?

Well, I tried again... and again. At the start of one game, I tried to boost my rice production and go with a trade strategy, but I would inevitably be tempted to expand militarily and be summarily slapped down. I would then try to stockpile my fighting units only to be taken out from all sides due to my refusal to act. There were some strategies I refused to try because I didn't agree with them, and probably failed as a result; one such tactic was marrying into alliances. Because it seemed dishonest to me to establish alliances only to break them, I never tried that approach, though it could have been a route to victory. (Actually, Japan was largely unified through alliances, diplomacy, and the Battle of Sekigahara, which wasn't a direct military victory for Tokugawa Ieyasu as much as it stoked the formation of a political coalition among the victorious domains). Anyway, I tried several tactics and avoided other tactics, but the results were always the same: failure to advance.

The common response to repeated failure in strategy games is to seek out whatever tips, tricks, and information out there to play and win, but because I was more of a sports gamer at the time, I didn't have the patience to find strategy guides to win at what was essentially a resource management game. In little time, I shelved the game, never to crack the case again. Today, I still own Nobunaga's Ambition. As I write this, I think about how my new-found interest in Euro-style board games, which has stoked a parallel interest in Nobunaga's Ambition. Perhaps I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with this game: as a 22-year-old sports fan, the game was too slow and too opaque for me to sit back and enjoy it. However, as a 38-year-old board gamer, I think I'll try this game again. With the Internet and mounds of potential strategy information at my disposal, I can approach the game with a renewed vigor, with optimism, and with an appreciation of the management of resources. Stay tuned for Part II, when I give Nobunaga's Ambition another try...

Stratego: 1HN Childhood Dream Fulfilled

As my legions of fans know (okay, I DON'T have legions of fans, but that phrase sounds pleasantly grandiose), I was, and still am, an only child. I say this because I grew up with few playmates. Not so surprisingly, this had its advantages: I always knew where my stuff was, I tended to keep all the weapons to my GI Joes and Transformers and not have them lost by a younger sibling, and I only had myself to blame if a game or toy was damaged or wrecked. Sadly, though, being an only child had its downsides, namely the aforementioned lack of playmates or opponent for games. This was especially tragic because I loved, and still love, board games. I used to collect all the classics, like Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Advance to Boardwalk, Doorways to Adventure (a VCR game!), Chess, and Stratego. Now, you might be asking yourself, "What about your mom and dad? Didn't they play board games?" To be fair, I may not have asked them to play, but as I got older they didn't seem to enjoy playing games. Anyway, because I was an only child, I had few opponents except for friends. The other tragic thing about me was that I despised losing, and one has to be accustomed to losing at board games because results often do not favor oneself. That's another story.

One game that I collected that I mentioned earlier is Stratego. It's a game that involves two armies on a map with grid lines. Both players place the soldiers, bombs, and flag of their armies on squares in the back four rows of their sides of the board. Soldiers occupy many ranks from number 9 (which is a Scout) to number 1 (which is the field marshal). Pieces are deployed with their backs facing their opponent, so one never finds out what his opponent's pieces are until one of his pieces engages one of his opponent's pieces. That's how the game works essentially; two pieces engage in combat and the lower-numbered (or higher-ranking) piece wins. The object of the game is simple: capture the opponent's flag whilst avoiding bombs (which can only be defused and removed by the Miner, which is number 8) and higher-ranked pieces. A pleasing twist is the Spy, which cannot eliminate any other piece but the opponent's field marshal; the Spy can play a key end-game role, especially if the opponent favors an attack spearheaded by good ol' Number 1.

The wonderful aspects of Stratego are the placement of one's pieces and the various strategies one can employ to seek the opponent's flag. By this, flag placement is most crucial; does one place the flag in a back corner and surround it with bombs (even though this is directly out of the Stratego 101 textbook), or does one place the flag away from a cluster of bombs to fool the opponent into going for the cluster of bombs (which may also be a basic approach)? Does one lead a wedge attack with the field marshal, or does one use Scouts to feel out the opponent's front line and then send stronger troops in pairs or groups? Does one use the field marshal to defend the flag?

I'm certain there are numerous tactics one can apply and various websites that explain each tactic, but I won't delve into those here because, frankly, I'm not well-versed in all the strategies. Instead, the focus of this article is on the fulfillment of a childhood dream. Now that I am a father with two boys, I not only have the opportunity to watch them play Stratego with the same board and pieces that I collected as a youngster, but I also have opponents against whom I can play; and, I must say that my sons are the best opponents because I like to watch them beat me and I also enjoy winning against them in hard-fought matches. Stratego, along with many of the board games I still own from my childhood days, embodies what it means to live retro: to appreciate the utility and  fun of the old stuff. If you are in your teens or twenties now, save your board games, card games, and video games; though they may not have much collector value, they will have replay value with your descendants. Moreover, if you are in your thirties or older, do not be afraid to dust off the old games for your young ones. For me, dusting off those old games and playing with my sons fulfilled that childhood dream of having ready opponents that I would be as happy to lose against as I would be to win against.

NES Pro Wrestling: 1HN Slam Action

NES Pro Wrestling was one of the first games I remember witnessing being played on the NES during my junior high school days. I recall the day well: I rode my bike to my acquaintance (I'll explain later) Joshua's house. At the time, I looked forward to playing some games with him on his Nintendo Entertainment System because, well, I didn't have one. Anyway, when I arrived, I got to watch him play a game in which wrestlers were slammed, thrown, clotheslined, pile-driven, and back-broken (can I say that?!). I remember being eager to play...

And I waited... For one hour... Two hours...

After over two hours of waiting, I realized dimly that Joshua would never let me play. I'm not sure he was even aware of my presence in his living room while he played. That is not to say that I was angry or even despondent because I enjoyed watching him, but over time I have come to conclude that Joshua was rather selfish and inhospitable (which, in turn, compels me to encourage my boys to share video game time with each other and with friends who visit). Funnily enough, though, those observations were absent in my mind.

Sadly, I ended up getting home late that day and my parents were rightfully upset and worried. In a feeble attempt to perhaps stave off their ire, I had set my wristwatch back one hour; that way, I could offer the excuse that the time on my watch was wrong. Of course, that got them even more upset because I had proven that I wasn't careful enough to keep time accurately on my watch (not to mention, I lied!). Ah, the memories...

NES Pro Wrestling was one of the early Nintendo-brand releases for the NES console. It has the look and feel of the initial NES releases with the black-covered manuals and 8-bit-rendered cartridge labels with the black spines. When I received NES Pro Wrestling for Christmas one year (I forget which one), I recall how oddly pleased I was that the look of the cartridge matched some of my other NES titles, like Baseball and Ice Climber. For some reason, I was really interested in uniformity… Anyway, NES Pro Wrestling features six characters: Fighter Hayabusa, Starman, Kin Korn Karn, Giant Panther, The Amazon, and King Slender. 

Each character can punch, kick, body slam, and throw an opponent against the ropes to either knee him in the face or clothesline him. Yet, what’s really fun is that each character has his own special moves. For example, Giant Panther can either head-butt the opponent or administer the “Iron Claw,” which is when he grabs the face of his opponent with his palm and squeezes. Each time a wrestler performs his special move, his foe collapses into a heap, after which the wrestler can either pin his foe or pull him up… by the hair.

NES Pro Wrestling is still alive and well in my collection and my boys get a kick out of wrestling with each other. For an 8-bit NES game, NES Pro Wrestling does have some depth with all the special moves and strategies one can employ. One of my favorite strategies is to use Starman’s Flying Cross Chop from a standing position. Originally, the move was intended to be performed after an opponent is thrown against the ropes, but I learned that one can fly through the air and chop the opposing wrestler from a standing position WITHOUT throwing him. As one plays, one picks up on these little tactics and misuses of special moves, as well as on the fact that there is a twenty-second limit when a wrestler is outside the ring. I won’t give away the strategy for using that time limit. As an aside, the only stipulation I have made with my boys is that they cannot play with The Amazon because special moves involve either using a dinner fork or his mouth to munch on the opposing player. 

This leads me to a discussion I had started on this blog long ago, when I wrote about violence in video games, initiating a one-sided discussion about the acceptable extent and intent of such violence. At that time, I reasoned that one should consider both how realistic the violence is portrayed and the intent of the violence in the game itself. Over time, though, I have given the issue much thought, especially vis-à-vis the Bible. Now, dare I say that the Bible does portray some violence, whether it be Samson slaying a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, Joshua and his armies after the walls of Jericho fell, or David beheaded the felled Goliath after the slung stone found its mark. Considering these and many other examples, violence in war or in defense of one's home may be unavoidable. However, in the context of this blog, the crucial issue is how far does one go with violence for the sake of fun...

In my opinion, one has to look at each case and conclude based on personal convictions in relation to God’s word. In the case of NES Pro Wrestling, just like professional wrestling in real life, the “violence” is so cartoonish and rendered in that vague 8-bit style that the game is more of a stress reliever and less of a desensitizing force. I have observed my boys play the game, I have talked to them about how dangerous professional wrestling really is, and I have discussed how pro wrestlers are trained professionals who practice how to NOT hurt their opponents and yet execute athletically acrobatic moves. So far, my boys have not executed such moves on each other; more importantly, they understand that violence outside of a video game is inevitable in certain situations, such as during war or in defense of one’s home. There will be more on this later.